DIARY OF A GRANDFATHER

Diary of a Reformed Driver  or Zorro Rides Again

OK every one deserves a little fantasy

Stumbling out into the pre- dawn Daylight Saving Time darkness I hear the faint call of the 0647 to Melbourne.

Where is that cute blonde with the big brown eyes sitting today, the disinterested businessman in the ill -fitting suit, the office girl with the perennial makeup fix, the sleepy fat fellow in overalls, the tired mum in elegant attire, the Gisborne group making surface conversation, where would I be sitting...?

Doesn’t matter, Zorro sits in the carport his blackness melding into the cold. It gleams, my daughter Janice has been driving it after her car had an altercation with a kangaroo. (It should be clean she does run a cleaning business as well as being a registered nurse-Helping Hand 0438765313- that’s a plug ) Strange that cleaners get more money than registered nurses.

But then no stranger than me being one of the 1.3 million  trips being made into Melbourne and back today by drivers, most of them in nearly empty one person occupied cars-very strange.

My old Holden used to weigh nearly 1.2 ton, Zorro probably only weighs half of that but it is still hefty pierce of metal to carry one person into the meat grinder.

1.3 million people heading off today- how absurd .

How Commuters get to work

Chooks and dogs do not run by daylight saving time, Bogie (Kindred Spirit and my dog) looks at me as though what and the hell are we doing up in the dark. He reluctantly runs around checking my progress.

The chooks are still nestled on top of the nesting box their favourite perch; they feebly cluck but don’t show much enthusiasm. I chat to them tell them it’s the governments fault.

I find the Age by feel the paper boy manages to throw it within three square metres of the same place every morning. No real paper boys anymore they throw it out of a car.  When I was a boy (I’m sixty) and paper boys used to deliver on bikes and pit it in your letter box or squeeze it into your fence. My brothers Robert and Peter were far better paper boys than I ever was.

I water the Cumquat Tree; why in the hell did I grow a cumquat tree?

Maureen is organised has me off on time as she is.

Statistic are great Aren’t They?

The controls feel the same, Zorro has not changed a bit, funny that, have I?

There is only one set of traffic lights in Kyneton and strangely they are nearly always red when I meet them in the morning, my first morning back is no different. Something’s just do not change.

Zorro flexes his muscles on the freeway up to 120Kmh steady down out of practice, I settle down to a steady 105.

The slow grey Camray around Gisborne turnoff is also there. Eighty in 110 zone amazing every morning he is the same. Shaded windows mean I cannot see in, I imagine an elderly hunched public accountant clutching the steering wheel.

Its school holidays always quieter on school holidays. How many kids get driven to school?

But still there are cars aplenty all converging into the tight grid of the city.

What a fool’s paradise we live in, me and the other 1.3 million. How long can this continue?

Driving into the car park holding  500 cars I wonder what that Easter IsIander was thinking as he cut down the last tree?  Hope the coffee is good this morning!

Return

Raining slippery and wet the air full of ozone-sweet.

Traffic is still light must be  RDO’s as well. Weaving and winding stopping and starting...through one road and shopping centre one the same as another...

In my little black cacoon no one except me and the radio. ABC something about  euthanasia and the lady who killed herself rather than face a nursing home. After what I see every day I do not blame her.

A story on Delhi catches my eye as I am stopped at a traffick light (age on thefront seat) Delhi has a really good Metro. It might be the rape capital of the world (one every twenty minutes) but they know how to build a train system unlike Melbourne. Sad isn’t it.

Slipping along its good to be driving feels kind of nice, like I am in control- not reality.

Driving on the country roads past the scene of my crime is traumatic, no cops this evening. Fate it is not to be accounted for!

Fate (Definition)

 

Although often used interchangeably, the words "fate" and "destiny" have distinct connotations.

 Traditional usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "inevitable" and unavoidable. Classical and European mythology features three goddesses dispensing fate, known as Moirai in Greek mythology, as Parcae in Roman mythology, and as Norns in Norse mythology. They determine the events of the world through the mystic spinning of threads that represent individual human fates.

 Destiny is used with regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and to that same sense of "destination", projected into the future to become the flow of events as they will work themselves out.

 

In other words, "fate" relates to events of the future and present of an individual and in cases in literature unalterable, whereas "destiny" relates to the probable future. Fate implies no choice, but with destiny the entity participates in achieving an outcome that is directly related to itself. Participation happens wilfully. From Wikipedia.

The Carlsruhe murder of crows (Ravens really no crows in Victoria) are still there as always bloody arrogant bastards, they just get out of the way. Crows and cockroaches will inherit the world.

Nearing Kyneton coming in the back way rain has given way to bright skies. “Slow for animals” sign- a local is herding Merino’s along, cattle dog and everything how beautiful is that! How different from the grey I have just left.

Bloody hit red light again.

Pull into car port it almost seems as if Zorro sighs (I think it's me) the light is on in the kitchen I know Maureen will be there it will be warm and cosy. Bogie greets me as I open the door.

Lucky Zorro

It is cosy.

I lost my license for one month-speeding.